Ed,

Glad to see you're posting your research on the blog again this year. Thanks.

How do you see the current economic recession affecting arbitration this year, if at all? I ask this because, in arbitration, the arbitrators are not permitted to take that into consideration, whereas obviously economic conditions can impact the free agent market. I wonder what impact that will have on a player's decision whether to accept arbitration.

 Rick Karcher -- 12/06/2008 12:20 PM  

You are correct that the current economic recession is apparently going to impact the free agent market this year. As to the group this weekend, I was not surprised to see only David Weathers and Darren Oliver accept arbitration. For the most part, the teams offered arbitration to make sure that they received draft choices often for players that they expected would decline arbitration. Most of the players offered want to see what the free agent market will bear for their services. For many mid-level free agents, they might have done better by staying with their existing team and allowing the arbitration process to decide their salary.

Although the arbitrators are not supposed to take into consideration “the financial position of the Player or the Club,” the comparable salaries under consideration this year could be altered. I have always had a hard time trying to figure out about the impact of comparable salaries negotiated during the time just before the hearings for the upcoming year. One of the individuals actually involved in arbitrations for a team responding to one of my post last year by saying that the only individuals that you look at are other members of the same class in terms of years of service, e.g. three-year players compared to other three-year players, four-years players compared to other four-year players. The criteria in the CBA points out the use of comparable players from the “one annual service group above the Player’s annual service group.” The CBA also discusses the use of any player’s salaries for comparison if the player’s representatives can successfully show “special accomplishment.” However, an article that I mentioned last year that discussed the comparable players offered by the Yankees during the Chien-Ming Wang arbitration hearing included some individuals who were already six-year plus players (Roy Oswalt, Freddy Garcia, and John Lackey).

As to the usual class of players in the Super-Two to six-year players, it will be interesting to see if the economy changes negotiation strategy up through the exchange of figures or after that period to before the hearing when many teams and players will try to find an acceptable figure. It could also change the strategy of what figure you did decide to present to the other side.

 Ed Edmonds -- 12/08/2008 4:15 PM  

Ed,

I was trying to find out exactly what salary arbitration was...thanks for clearing that up for me. However, I have a question...the Yanks signed 3 class A players, all for different teams. Who gets the 1st round pick from the yanks since they can't all have one?

 Anonymous -- 1/15/2009 1:04 PM  

This is an important topic. Salary and stuff like that really needs to be discussed in more depth. I would do it now but I'd rather just read on. You understand?

 Sports Authority Salaries -- 4/20/2009 7:28 PM  

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